8-095 Canberra: Capital of Australia II

Lead: The site for its new capital chosen, Australia turned to an international competition to choose the designer. The winner was an American, Walter Burley Griffin.

Intro: A Moment In Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: Walter Griffin was considered part of the Prairie School of Architecture, the most prominent proponent of which was Frank Lloyd Wright who employed Griffin for several years after 1901. Functional, of economic design and unpretentious, Prairie School houses were designed to fit into their surroundings. In 1912, Griffin was selected to design the new capitol of Australia at Canberra.

Dominating Griffin's design was a central artificial lake and a "parliamentary triangle" containing the most important buildings. Residential areas radiated outward from this center, all fitting into the general topography. Griffin arrived in 1914 and spent the best part of the next decade fighting the twin demons of inadequate funding and bureaucrats trying to alter his plans.

Professor Geoffrey Hawker, Macquarie University, Sydney: ". . . He won the prize but he was nearly packed off home to America . . . The bureaucrats did their design on Canberra, which was leaked . . . The London Times said, 'You know, it was obviously patched together by bureaucrats and they're putting out a camel of a town, and this is going to make Australia the laughingstock of the world, if they go ahead with this one.'"

A change of government gave Griffin a reprieve and his work proceeded. By the mid-1920s settlers by the thousands were beginning to move to Australia's new capital on the Limestone Plain.

Interviews with Geoffrey Hawker were conducted during a University of Richmond faculty research seminar in Australia, June 2001.

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Education

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